Nestling for comfort in abandoned innocence,

Pathetically vulnerable they lie,

Limbs intertwined.

Turning and tangling in the banking soil.

Nakedly helpless they slither,

Unresisting.

One, curling gently like an embryo,

Languidly throws up an arm in impotent defence,

Warding off delicate blows from a cold, coiled sibling,

Stroking a fleshless flank in a soft caress.

Appealing,

Seeking, stretching, touching, groping,

Arms and legs strung with flaccid cords of muscle.

Bones shining pallid through their flesh,

Taut cage of wire-strung ribs, gaunt curve of pelvis,

Sexlessly, they submit.

Acquiescent, blue-lilac-grey, they hold no malice.

No horror weeps from their deep-sunken eyes.

No screams pierce the air from their ravaged mouths.

Peace sings now in their hollow cheeks,

Acceptance.

All man could do to man of inhumanity

Has not robbed them of dignity nor power.

Speaking with silent eloquence,

Poignantly they plead.

Motionless, they move me.

Dead, they live on eternally behind my eyes -

A time-arrested picture of harrowing beauty -

As the great shovel tips them in a tide of earth

Tumbling over the lip of their mass grave.